L’Alpe 10 - Città di Montagna

Cities in the mountains. As Jon Mathieu observes in these pages, “in history the Alps represent a space in which urban centers are almost absent. The large and famous centers are located on the plains." Thus at least until the modern age, when Alpine or subalpine cities developed due to the agricultural potential of the surroundings, but precisely for this reason they remained at a disadvantage compared to the plains, so much so as to make people think that the mountains were no place for the city. And instead, against all evidence, the Alpine cities acquire an important role not only for the Alps, but for the whole of Europe, as Enrico Castelnuovo demonstrates by commenting on the flourishing of art from Saluzzo to Salzburg. This role evolves with ups and downs until the contemporary era, the time of urban colonization of the Alps. Today the destinies are so inextricably intertwined that it is no longer possible to think of a mountain without the city.